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YMMV but I'd encourage you to take a break from consuming "success porn" online. That's my broad term for:

Social media: because people curate everything and only post things that make their lives look amazing. Real life isn't a constant string of wins, success, and happiness. Don't let it distort your view and wonder why your life isn't the same.

Startup news: TechCrunch, Recode, Bus. Insider, and even here on HN. Post after post about YC, funding rounds, growth, and–of course–big exits. Its easy to find them but the truth is, they are outlier events. If a big startup exit is something you want–fine, by all means go for it–but don't let any article fool you into thinking its easy or guaranteed if you follow some formula. It's not. Startups are hard. There is no guarantee of success because some things are beyond your control.

Success celebrities: avoid videos, podcasts, ebooks, and online courses from celebrity entrepreneurs. These are people who have had moderate success with a blog/vlog/startup/book/whatever and now want to teach everyone else how to do it. Truth is, they just want to take your money and time. The only thing you might learn is how to be just like them (yuck).

Hope that helps. Lots of other good advice here. Find other things to put your energy into and good luck!




Absolutely.

Decreasing the amount of time I spent on social media has increased the quality of my life by at least 10 times. Before I used to feel intimidated going to the gym, posting on my tech blog, simply because everyone else was just doing it better than myself or at least I believed so and cared. When I went on to actually do and enjoy things, I noticed how everything is so imperfect and how in essence I do not care about others. It may sound funny, but that brought back the smell of roses. Another important side-effect was an increase in amount of in-person interaction with the people I wanted to interact.

Slightly off-topic. When you mentioned success celebreneurs I couldn't help but remember the famous Tai Lopez video - "Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here.. You know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? Knawledge".


"In fact, I’m a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed to hold two thousand new books that I bought."

Tai Lopez is the definition of the word humblebrag.


When did "humblebrag" become synonymous with just bragging?


In my defence for the use of the word humblebrag, I thought he was trying to be humble


When people stopped caring being humble


In other words, come to know this: There is no need to be anything special.


Any non-"success porn" sites you might recommend?

I know this differs between people but I'd be interested to know what sites you view as the opposite of those listed.




They're nice, but I feel that these communities will evolve into success porn unless actively checked.


Facebook? Just have friends less successful than you ;)


Well said! Thank you.




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